The Disappearing People

I've always been afraid of ending up alone. Not just in the romantic sense of the word, but also in basic friendships. I'm aware of my challenges in forming connections, I'm aware of the fact that I don't open up easily and I'm aware of the constant hum that goes on in the back of my head when I meet someone new - "Are you to be trusted?" I'm also aware that given enough time, people screw up hugely and that sometimes, I can't find a way to cross that bridge without burning it. And because of all this hyper-awareness, and my fear of being alone, any shuddering change in my social circle gets my full attention.

Lately I've been looking around myself and seeing that the people I used to know have changed. I don't mean change in the personality kind of way, not even in the "s/he has become a different person" metaphorical sense. I mean, literally, the people I used to know have dropped out of my world, replaced by another bunch of people.

Some of the disappearing acts have happened dramatically :
"You and I are done!"
And some have been hurtful:
"I wonder if I was ever your friend, or did you just use me to feel good about yourself?"
And some have just gone into the fugue of "Let's catch up soon" knowing we won't.

All this has happened in a very short space of time - say a couple of months. And I've been pretty cut up about it. I've bawled myself to sleep once, I've sat quietly and collected my shattered calm a few times and sometimes I've just stared askance at a computer screen reading the words that go like, "You're going to be nutty about a Facebook friend request? Forget I asked."

The thing is, I like all these people. I've liked them for a while. Almost all of them are super bright, talented, funny - exactly the kind of mix I thrive on. But making those deep exclusive friendships somehow hasn't happened for me. I'm too open to new people, I'm too easily bored, I'm too excited by the possibility of what could be new and different about many experiences to really believe that the five people I cobbled together as friends when I was 20 would be the same five friends I'd need when I was 36.

And then I took a closer look at all the people who have disappeared - dramatically or otherwise. And I start to see a pattern emerge. Each one of them has grievously wronged me in the past. And each one of them, today, made it seem as if the rift was my fault. And each one of them found it mighty easy to let me go. If I was writing a film, none of them would be the hero - not because they are flawed but because they show a remarkable lack of substance (which they hide behind oodles of charm) and very poor taste. And while I forgive easily, I never forget.

Trust is a tricky thing. In my life, I hand over my trust to people unguardedly when it comes to friendship. Like blown-glass, it takes the shape of a unique glass jar that is truly representative of the two people involved. But, like a glass jar, when trust truly shatters, then no amount of glue can remove those cracks from the relationship. The best that can be hoped for is that the jar doesn't shatter again, and over the years you get used to the cracks to the extent that you stop noticing them. Sometimes, I think that those relationships are the ones that are truly unique and worth saving because, if you look at any of the masterpieces of the world, they're nothing without the cracks in the paint / ceramic.

But the thing about relationships is that it can't be done solo. That's why, with every goodbye, I feel a part of me tear out and crumble.

And then I discovered something very interesting. It seems, in the study of Alchemy, there's a belief that says that if you change a few chemical bonds in mercury, you'll get gold. I think the same is true among people - if you change the nature of a few bonds in your life, it's likely that you'll become everything you can be. And then, those are the kind of people you'll attract in your life as well - the people who aspire to be better.

Because if the Universe gives you everything you want, then friends are the last thing you'll ever lack.

Why I Want a Surprise Birthday Party

I’ve always wanted a surprise party on my birthday. It’s such a great feeling to walk into a house, maybe after a rotten day, and come into a room full of people who love you. And – the most important part – you didn’t have to work out the logistics. 

Till date, I haven’t ever had one thrown for me. And the sad part is – as a friend of mine just pointed out – it’s a little daunting to organize one. I have a vast social circle filled with people whom I would love to meet, but just about maybe 5 people who are people I consider myself close to. These 5 people mostly don’t get along with each other so there’s no small committee of people who can get together and make a guest-list of everyone I know, and people they’re certain I would like to meet.

The unfortunate truth is – a surprise party needs a bestie and I don’t think I have one. There are a few people who come close, but the bestie who knows all your friends, all your family members, knows history and the emotional minefields, the one who has the contact numbers of atleast 17 of the significants in my life… that essential ingredient to a surprise party is missing from my life.

And I’ve had a lot to do with that. By nature, I’m a person who compartmentalizes my life. There are writing friends, the creative bunch, media buddies, drinking buddies, semi-strangers-with-a-connect, business-partners-who-are-friends, ex-FWBs-lovers-boyfriends, school buddies, college buddies, dead-bestie’s-social-circle, etc . And this lot is just a broad-stroke categorization. Within each group, there are several distinctions. (Looking at this list, I can see why I need to compartmentalize – I’ll just go cuckoo otherwise!) Each circle of friends caters to a different facet of my personality but every time any two of these circles have collided, I’m always surprised to realize that one group doesn’t usually get along with the other. It’s like my internal war brought out into the open with equally pitted players fighting for space.  It’s a metaphorical massacre.

That’s why a surprise party is so important. It’s not just that by some miracle, I’ll have all my favorite people in the room together, but that there would be someone who would get all my different people, and thus, in a way, finally get me.

Someone to Love

That’s my Achilles’ Heel. I’m a sucker for someone whom I can hold, cuddle and love. I have given up at different times my discernment, my standards and almost every shred of self-respect simply because I’m overcome by the need to shower all my love on someone. That has and always will be the basis of my relationships.

The downside to that is, I don’t really pay attention to how much love I get. It’s not that I’m not loved, or that it doesn’t matter to me. Indeed, every person I’ve been with at different stages of my emotional maturity has loved me – and in some part of their hearts – continue to do so. And vice-versa. But in every case, the relationship has ended when I’ve woken up to the fact that I’m not loved as much as I felt I deserved to be.

You know that saying – “Give someone enough rope, and sooner or later they’ll hang themselves”? I’ve been in the maybe not-so-unique position of being the rope holder as well as the person hung at the end of it all. You see, I have a threshold of giving and expecting nothing in return. I use it as my barometer. At what point will he understand how awesome I am and suddenly start giving me my due? And ofcourse, if he telepathically can understand that – then I’ll be his slave for life. But by the time that happens , if at all, I’ve already spent all my rope and died in the relationship. 

The fact however is – much as I bemoan the ridiculous presence of games in relationships – this has been the single most consistent game I have played with myself for all these years. My lovers, at some subliminal strata, have been experiments – and levels I’ve crossed – while I’ve honed lying to myself into an art form.

Until one day, an unplanned-for furball comes into my life. One look into her doe-eyed expression and I’m a goner. Like I’ll-kidnap-her-and-run-away-together-to-the-Andaman’s-and-nobody-will-find-us-forever kind of goner. I made no bones about saying so clearly to her then-owners.  There must be some truth to the concept of the Universe giving you everything you want because within a few weeks, she was in my arms, in my house, hiding under my couch as she became used to her new home and owner.

And, suddenly, without any expectations, I had someone to love. There was no game playing. I loved her, she tolerated me, and soon we adopted each other as ours. And as we sit together and watch TV shows late into the night (well, mostly she sleeps on my belly as I watch) or I write while she chases her shadow across the room, a startling thought comes into my head - I haven’t made a single booty call in months!

Now that can either mean I’ve gotten over men entirely, or maybe I’ve just gotten over regularly dropping my standards in exchange for a warm body. Either way, it’s a brave new world.

Committed, Strait - Jacketed

I’ve been accused of being commitment phobic by almost everyone I know. And the thing is – i don’t understand the basis of that statement. Looking back, I can’t imagine someone who is as committed as I am to so many things.

Let's look at the facts : I was the first among my peers to buy my apartment, thus setting down some serious roots in my adopted city. I work in the media – and God knows that needs a deep level of commitment because in the absence of immediate or substantial returns, there’s nothing to make you keep going on other than a commitment to your own vision. I'm taking care of a pet - and that's a 10-year plan atleast - in a time when people can't figure out what they're doing the next day. And finally, these days I’m working towards giving my family a financial future that few people have imagined. 14 months down the line, in the absence of familial or friend support, there’s nothing else but my commitment to my goals that keeps me going on, bit by bit, day after day, climbing that steep insane mountain that I can only imagine the view from.

But the truth is - I AM commitment phobic. I'm terrified of being irretrievably committed to my definition of myself.

(Cue song: "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover.." - Meredith Brooks)

This lack of rigid boundaries of the self has resulted in a series of different kinds of loosely defined and deeply analyticised romantic relationships that I've shared with some very interesting men. Well, boys. And the fact that several of them have not lasted beyond an average fruit-fly's lifespan has earned me the "commitment phobic" moniker.

That definition - and the basis of it - would be correct had there not been such a deluge of people proving it wrong.

Recently I met a friend who’s going through a divorce after 10 years of a rocky marriage. By no stretch of imagination can she be considered ‘flighty” or commitment phobic. And yet, a day after the papers are signed, her mother gives her the shpeel of ‘not having committed to the husband’ enough. 10 years and it’s still not enough. If you think about it, nothing will ever be enough because, in the narrative of our lives, until we get to the happily ever after with a significant other, our efforts have been incomplete.

The problem? There is no such thing as a happily ever after OR a single significant other. And yet, we spend so much of our time focused on achieving that mirage. And the sad part is - it's not even a unique mirage that we seek – just about anything that helps us feel not so alone.

These days I meet a lot of people. For someone who’s as anti-people as I, that in itself is a feat of discipline and commitment. But what is even more interesting is what i learn from all these people. Ask anyone to identify themselves in a single sentence and they will talk pretty much the same way:

 "I'm a (good / bad / interesting, etc)  (person / professional descriptor - artist, manager, etc)
who has a (house / family / job / other possessions)
that I (love, hate, enjoy, bitch and moan about, am working on, etc..)
and someday, hopefully in the next (time period)
I'll be (achieving a goal - holiday / charity / winning the burger eating competition.. etc)
that will make me (emotional payoff - happy / popular / loved / etc)

Before any of you jump to the comment form and write your unusual 'intros in a sentence' designed to prove me wrong - and I'll be interested to read them - I just want to say that if ever anyone has ever thought this phrase - "That is so not me" - it shows our deep and undying commitment to who we are, usually and often to the detriment of who we could be.

The truth is – as Baz Luhrman said so eloquently in his sunscreen ditty – the real things that will end up mattering in our lives are the things that will happen at 4 pm on a Tuesday afternoon. Your daughter will have her head bashed in and you’ll suddenly be facing the death sentence, an unwitnessed moment in a darkened room will have you splashed across the front pages of the daily rags, fighting for your honor; one casual traffic violation by a stranger will leave your family mired in hospital bills for the rest of your invalid life. And no amount of “being a good photographer with a loving (but now paralysed) husband…” will change those things.

So the big question isn’t if one is commitment phobic or not – a quick look at the long hours we spend at someone else’s beck and call is enough to answer that - but what is it worthwhile being committed to? That romantic spark that may flare up intermittently in a boy-meets-girl scenario? Or the immense possibilities of who we can be if we can give up our self-definitions?

A long time ago, a friend told me that he categorized people as those with imagination and those without. That was a good distinction but what is truer is not the imagination, but the gumption to follow through. And that shockingly is in very low supply. Why? Because while facing new challenges revs up the adrenaline and clears out the cobwebs, maintaining a status quo strangles every last piece of gumption out of us. The reason is simple – the instinct of change comes from hope and the drag of the status quo comes from fear.
But all that is okay. What is really interesting is that if you ask anyone to imagine a future with a Tuesday 4 pm scenario, you will see the walls come crashing down, revealing briefly the terrified children who we all were and continue to be.

And this is what I have come to believe. We are all children who didn’t realise when we became grown ups and had to take the responsibility of adult decisions. We clung to what we have been told of the birth – job – marriage – death well-trodden path, and took it to be gospel truth. We believed it when the adults told us that we had to give up on our dreams to make it in the ‘real’ world. And we believed them when they said that if we knew our place in the world and followed the 'rules', everything will be all right and we shall indeed get our happily ever after.

The lie wasn’t the one they told us. The lie was what they hid. And that is one simple fact – all that we ever know, we ever believed and we value has come from people no smarter or wiser than us. If we make mistakes, so did they. Their lessons come from their existence, and the beliefs and knowledge that was handed down to them from another set of flawed, average people. So looking back through the infinity mirrors of our lives, it becomes clear that we’re doing nothing different from what our great grandfathers did. One would think with so many volumes of history books crowding every empty library these days, we would see the patterns and understand the futility of that choice.

But no. We cling to our carefully constructed lives and choose not to believe that our personal tsunami could be around the corner and our shackles will only pull us down.

Now if that’s what we’re going to be committed to, it is indeed scary as hell.

Girl, Instagrammed

You have a photograph of me. In that photograph, I’m laughing at a joke cracked by an unseen person, my face is lit up, I look pretty. You have another photograph of me. In that one, I’m smiling bravely through a hint of tears. I had got my heart beaten that day and you had been kind to me. You don’t know this but I was smiling because I saw you. You have a picture of me looking seriously at another person as I go through work. There’s one where I’m sleeping on your shoulder on a long bus journey. Even when you see me for hours in a day, you just have snapshots of me, frozen in time, out of context, yet forever true. You say you love me. And I wonder which snapshot of mine you’re thinking of when you say those words.

I’m terrified of the girl in those pictures. That girl is so happy, unfazed by the world, beyond reach and yet, she looks like at any moment she will turn and smile at you. You do love that girl. Who wouldn’t? She is the happiest, brightest, shiniest star in the Universe you occupy. Yet, you don’t see that – just like the star – by the time the light has reached you, the moment is already in the past.

I think that’s the beauty of snapshots. They last. They give you an illusion of eternity. Who wouldn’t want to love someone for eternity, if that’s what it looks like? A series of happy moments, that you will share. There’ll be no hint of worry in her, no insecurity, no incompetence, no qualities that you would consider deal-breakers. She will always be the way she is in any of your favourite snapshots, and you’ll always love her.

And then there’s me. I’m the girl who wonders if you’re telling the truth about love, or if I’ll again lose to my mistress, the snapshot. Will you wake up one morning and look at the real person next to you – the one who’s scared of everything somedays, who is clingy and sometimes needs validation, the mostly inadequate, awkward person (not in the cute gawky way) who lives and breathes mundane like it was going out of style – and wonder what happened to the buoyant, uncomplicated, positive person whose picture you took? Will you reject the person, or the photoshop tool that promised you much more than was there?

In the end, if our house was burning down and you could take just one thing with you, will you come for me or will you try to save the photographs?

So.. A Kiss is just a Kiss...?

Looking back, I can see that I’ve been dumped quite often. My shortest relationship was of 20 minutes. Sam and I had been hanging out with each other on a FWB basis for a few months when, one night, in the middle of a loud raucous nightclub, when I was well on my way to happy inebriation, he asked me out. He said, “So.. let’s you and I go out seriously... yes?” I stared at him, at his sweet, earnest face, and then I said, yes.  We kissed and then I went to meet my friends who were sitting at a table some distance away. When I returned, my relationship was over. He said, “You know what? Forget it. It won’t work.”

Alex and I went out for a remarkable four days. He asked me out after we had been hanging out with each other for years. He’s the one who helped me get over my double-whammy heartbreak (the other Sam), and he pulled me laughing and bantering right back from the edge. Over a couple of years, he earned my trust, treated me well – and then, one weird evening while he was giving me a ride back to my place, he said, “So how about we do this for real?”

I stared at his face, which looked more shocked at the fact that he had actually asked me the question, and I said, “Okay.. why not?” We grinned, terrified of this step we were taking, betting on people who we weren’t sure could handle our most vulnerable parts, and went for it. Two days of sex later, I went to visit my friend who was dying of cancer. I returned to “we need to talk”, when I was informed that “This isn’t going to work, and it’s best we end it before anyone gets hurt.”

Andy and I lasted all of no days. One day, after hanging out over many cups of coffee, he said that he’d like to see where this goes. It’s been so long since someone told me that there was a potential distance to be gone, that I said yes. Then he disappeared for 3 days – no contact. We got over that hump, and then, after an emotional trip spent with friends, family and scattered loved ones – a microcosm of what I consider my extended family – I returned home and asked him if he’d like to consider belonging to it in some small way. He said he’d love to talk about it, and then he disappeared for a week. So I cut my losses and run.

What losses? Everytime I fall in with someone’s plans with me, it’s because I’m already a little in love. When I say yes, it’s because I’m already imagining what it would be like to hold hands, to sit together on the same side of the diner booth, what it would feel to sit lightly touching each other, while we read our books or just doing our own stuff, to have unplanned surprise lunches and movies out and dinners in. I go in wholeheartedly. I don’t know any other way.

So why do I get dumped? If I’m to believe what these guys say, it’s bizarre. Many years later, Sam told me it was because right after he’d asked me and I’d said yes, I’d not stood with him, but had gone to see my friends at the next table. I waited for more, but that was all that came. When I said, “Yes, but I came back,” he said that it was too late by then. That was eight years ago, and since then Sam has been trying to get back with me and wonders why I don’t pay him any mind.

In Alex’s case, and not to my knowledge, he had his sexy-ex walk back into his life over the weekend that I was hanging with my very ill friend. However since I’d gone (“so soon after we had started going out”), it was clearly a sign that I wasn’t serious about us. And so he gave us up. Now, so many years later, during which we continue to be friends, he’s worked his ass off trying to get back to a place of affection which was offered to him so easily. And he wonders why I won’t give him his spot back.

I don’t understand it. Maybe it was because they were sure I didn’t care. Maybe it was because the chase was over. Maybe they think that I'm made of stone and don't get hurt by such betrayals.. Maybe... maybe.. The bottomline is – guys seem to ask me out, and when I say yes, they disappear.

And now there’s Aaren. He’s someone I met through my new business venture. We’ve known each other for about 8 months now. Divorced, a media man by profession, someone my mom’s met twice and approves of madly. And he said he loves me. We work together quite closely and intend to for the duration of the next couple of years. So if things go south at a personal level, it’s going to be awkward for a few years. And considering he’s one of my major highlights in the business, the down side will suck a lot.

The last few days, ever since the great “you know what I feel about you” moment, we’ve hung out once a day at least. He’s sought me out, I’ve seen him in his office, I’ve introduced him to a friend of mine, we’ve held hands, we’ve spent the night and slept entwined with each other. And kissed a couple of times.

All these things are huge exceptions to my usual modus operandi. I don’t know when was the last time I was comfortable calling a boy in the middle of the day, absolutely certain that he would be happy to hear from me, maybe even make himself available for an impromptu lunch. Or the last time all this happened without me saying the “L” word back or diving into the sack with him.

So maybe he’ll follow the same route, and wait for me to fall for him, and then he’ll walk away because the chase would be over. Maybe the sex will be terrible, which is why he’s not pulling me into it. Or maybe.. just maybe.. he’s perfect for me, the real thing, and there won’t be a downside ever.

How terrifying is that?